Split NJ High Court Backs Walmart In Snowy Lot Injury Suit

By Carla Baranauckas

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Walmart didn't create the "unusual circumstances" required to make it liable for injuries suffered by a customer who slipped on a snowy parking lot, drawing a sharp dissent from justices who said the majority's take shunned case law and "bedrock tort principles" and misread case law.

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DOJ Wants Rethink On Apple's Peek Into Feds' Phone-Buying

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a special master to rethink his New Jersey federal court mandate giving Apple a look into how the Pentagon, CIA, State Department and other federal agencies purchase smartphones, arguing that the retired federal judge applied the wrong legal standard in the antitrust case.

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NJ Appeals Court Approves Docs Release In Atty Bribery Case

By Jake Maher

A former Bayonne mayoral candidate accused of accepting a bribe from an attorney is entitled to limited access to communications related to the investigation in his case, a New Jersey state appeals court ruled Thursday.

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J&J Pans Talc Claimant's 'Absurd' Bid To Nix $25M Appeal

By Brian Steele

In a sharply worded memo, Johnson & Johnson told the Connecticut Appellate Court that it should deny a "nonsensical" dismissal motion from a real estate developer who won a $25 million asbestos-related cancer verdict, defending its appeal of the trial court outcome as timely.

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Hayward Investor Atty Fees Bid Cut To $5M By Judge

By Katryna Perera

A New Jersey federal judge has cut roughly $1.5 million from a requested fee for attorneys who negotiated a $20 million settlement between pool equipment maker Hayward Holdings Inc. and its investors, finding that the firm did not provide enough information to back up the reasonableness of its requested fee.

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Insurance Sales Agents Win Conditional Cert. In Pay Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A New Jersey federal magistrate judge conditionally certified a collective of insurance sales agents, finding they offered more than speculation that common policies deprived them of pay for computer work and bonuses.

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2 Traders Admit Guilt In Stolen BigLaw Info Scheme

By Chris Villani

Two men pled guilty Thursday in Massachusetts federal court to their roles in a sweeping scheme to trade on inside information stolen from huge corporate law firms about upcoming deals.

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NC, Green Groups Call EPA-Chemours PFAS Deal Too Lenient

By Gautama Mehta

North Carolina state leaders and environmental organizations asked the federal government to walk back a proposed settlement with Chemours over so-called forever chemical pollution from three factories, saying the deal amounted to a slap on the wrist.

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Renters Seek $120M Fee Award In RealPage Rent-Fixing MDL

By Craig Clough

Renters in sprawling multidistrict litigation that reached nearly $360 million in preliminary settlements with building owners over their alleged use of RealPage's software to inflate rents asked a Tennessee federal judge to approve $119.9 million in attorney fees, saying they've expended over 100,000 hours on the case.

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Wells Fargo Can't Collect $4M 'Stranger' Policy, 8th Circ. Says

By Danielle Ferguson

The Eighth Circuit on Thursday upheld a ruling that an insurer does not have to pay out a $4 million life insurance policy to Wells Fargo Bank NA, finding the policy taken out on the now-deceased man was void because it was obtained through a scheme meant to benefit investors.

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Judge Keeps New Medicaid 'Frailty' Proof Rule In Place

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge late Wednesday declined to block the government from requiring medically frail Medicaid recipients to prove they are significantly impaired to avoid a new requirement that they engage in 80 hours of work or volunteering per month or attend school part-time.

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PE-Backed Jersey Mike's Makes Public Debut After $1B IPO

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Private equity-backed sandwich chain Jersey Mike's hit the public markets Thursday after raising $1 billion in its initial public offering steered by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

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Series

Teaching SEC Investigations Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Instructing a law school course on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations has made me a more thoughtful, deliberate practitioner because it requires me to continually reassess and challenge what I know about securities law enforcement, how I know it and how best to explain it, says David Chase at Miami Law.

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Advocacy Group Says Law Firm Fellowship Program Biased

By Patrick Hoff

A legal advocacy group said Thursday it had lodged U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges against a nonprofit and law firms including Jones Day, White & Case and Morgan Lewis, claiming Muslim and Middle Eastern students were getting unlawful preference in a fellowship program.

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ABA Eyes Nixing School DEI Standards To Sway Trump Admin

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association is poised next week to eliminate the first of multiple diversity-related law school standards, a controversial move that it hopes will allow it to remain an accreditor despite an uncertain outcome in the face of a Trump administration increasingly wary of the association's role in legal education.

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WilmerHale Sued Over Accidental Client Data Disclosure

By Andrea Keckley

A proposed federal class action filed Wednesday accuses WilmerHale of failing to protect clients' personal information after an employee allegedly disclosed sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, to an unauthorized person who misrepresented their identity back in May.

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Ill. Atty Sanctioned For AI Slop In Starbucks Bias Suit

By Adrian Cruz

A unanimous Illinois appeals court sanctioned an attorney representing a former Starbucks employee in a workplace discrimination suit after determining that he submitted briefs using false citations and quotations hallucinated by artificial intelligence software.

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Trump May Renominate Blanche If GOP Holdouts Block Vote

By Courtney Bublé

With Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., still on the fence about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation to be attorney general, President Donald Trump said Thursday he might renominate Blanche next year when the two senators are no longer serving in the Senate.

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DA Says Trump's NY Hush Money Conviction Must Stand

By Frank G. Runyeon

New York prosecutors told a state appellate court that President Donald Trump's 34-count felony conviction for falsifying business records is "unaffected" by the U.S. Supreme Court's watershed presidential immunity decision and should be upheld.

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Judiciary's Bid To Control Courthouses Gets Senate Push

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would create a pilot program for the federal judiciary to obtain direct authority to maintain its buildings, which the judiciary says is desperately needed.

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Bronx Legal Aid Organization's Union Rejects New Pay Offer

By Andrea Keckley

The Bronx Defenders' executive director said on Thursday that the union representing the organization's over 300 attorneys and staff has rejected an updated offer on wages, with both sides still at odds over the prospect of separate salary scales for lawyers and social workers.

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